


Some Little Talk a While of Me and Thee

by Elizabeth Culmer (edenfalling)



Category: Homestuck
Genre: 'Panic Attacks' comes closest but is not actually accurate, (there; I created the right tag), Best Friends, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluffy Ending, Friendship, Gen, Male-Female Friendship, Non-sexual Overstimulation, Not Epilogue Compliant, Pesterlog, Post-Canon, Prompt Fic, Slice of Life, Stargazing, cotton candy bingo, there doesn't seem to be a tag for 'suddenly cannot cope with social interaction anymore; must flee'
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-25
Updated: 2017-01-25
Packaged: 2018-09-19 19:29:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9457322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/edenfalling/pseuds/Elizabeth%20Culmer
Summary: It's the post-Sburb world, there are too many people all the time, and tonight Roxy wants to grab Dirk and flee screaming to a (pair of) faraway mountains.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MadameHardy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MadameHardy/gifts).



> This ficlet was written for [madamehardy](http://madamehardy.tumblr.com), in response to the prompt: _Homestuck, Dirk, Roxy, cuddle. It's the post-Sburb world, and there are too many people all the time, and only Dirk and Roxy want to flee screaming to a (pair of) faraway mountains. Bring back the blissful solitude of the post-apocalypse._
> 
> It is not compliant with the credits snapchats (or any snapchats thereafter), because reasons. :)

The stupid part is, up until that one moment, Roxy's having a really good night. All her friends (except Dirk, who hung grimly on through dinner and absconded immediately thereafter) together in one room, enough dinner for everyone to eat their fill and then dessert on top of that, the pleasant ache of an honest day's work building the infrastructure of their new world... yeah. A good night.

Except the thing is, as much as she needs people -- and she needs people a lot, needs that feedback loop of attention paid and returned -- there's a big difference between hanging out online and hanging out with a dozen people jammed together in a single room, so close she can hear them breathe and feel heat radiating from their skin. And she hasn't been getting alone time during the days either, always busy working with a crew of carapacians (who at least are quiet) and consorts (who are emphatically not).

Roxy doesn't notice the slow buildup of stress until it's too late, but she can pinpoint _exactly_ when the night tips from I-can-manage to oh-god-make-it-stop.

She's been kibitzing on the edges of Rose, John, and Jane's meal planning session (defusing any baby disagreements before they grow into anything serious), keeping half an ear on the Pictionary session Callie, Kanaya, and Terezi have going in the far corner, and watching Jade gleefully annihilate Dave and Karkat at Mario Kart for the honor of choosing tonight's featured presentation. It's maybe a bit much to be tracking all at once, but the satisfaction outweighs the strain until Dave throws a piece of popcorn at Jade, who teleports it into the tangle of Karkat's hair, who draws breath in preparation for an inside-voice-what-inside-voice rant, and Roxy is abruptly and completely _done_. Zip, zilch, finito, cutlery shop's closed up and all the merchandise is gone.

She shoves herself up from the warm and squashy armchair she staked out as her private territory back when they first built this group house, and says to nobody in particular: "I'm gonna go check on Dirk. It's been a while since he noped out and I want to make sure he hasn't broken his neck or started a robot apocalypse in his sleep."

Rose and Jane break off their debate over the relative merits of fish tacos and sushi to give her a pair of sharp glances. John just looks adorkably confused.

Roxy dredges up a reassuring smile from her last reserves of sociability.

It must not be very convincing, because Rose frowns and tenses like she's going to ask if Roxy needs any help, or maybe even stand up and give her a hug. Her concern is like a warm mug of hot chocolate, but the thing about warm mugs of hot chocolate is they're awesome on a frigid winter day after messing around in the snow for a couple hours, but this room on this night is more like a metaphorical scorching summer day when you're already sugared out and anything sweet makes you want to gag. In other words, a momdaughter's loving attention is nice in theory, but it's not conducive to noping the fuck out of the room -- not to mention if anyone touches her right now Roxy might actually break down and scream.

Fortunately, Jane rescues her.

She does something to Rose -- elbows her? kicks her under the coffee table? hard to say -- and while Rose is busy trying to regather her train of thought, Jane grins at Roxy, somehow managing to make the expression both obviously fake and equally obviously made of 24-carat solid gold sincerity.

"That sounds like an excellent plan!" she says. "When you find him, tell him that Jade needs to run the latest plans for the electricity grid past him, particularly the battery storage systems for evening the solar and wind outputs. I think the files are in the civil engineering dropbox account so he shouldn't need to ask her for anything until he's finished reviewing and annotating them."

Roxy nods.

"Well, what are you waiting for? Scram!" Jane makes little shooing motions with her hands.

Rose, apparently catching on to Roxy's actual state of mind, smiles benevolently and waves goodbye. "Au revoir," she says in her perpetually dry tone. "If anyone asks where you are, I'll tell them I sent you to give daddy dearest my love, perhaps in the form of seagull pie."

Jane rolls her eyes. John snickers and sticks out his tongue in mostly mock-disgust.

"Thanks, guys," Roxy manages to say, and flees.

\---------------

After a indeterminate period of time trying not to hyperventilate in her en suite bathroom, she sits cross-legged on her bed and wonders if she ought to make good on her escape excuse.

Dirk's even worse with large groups than Roxy is and doesn't make any attempt to pretend otherwise, but he's still human (no matter how much he sometimes dislikes that fact) and even the most introverted human is, at base, a social animal. And not all contact has to be as overwhelming as group events.

Roxy pulls out her phone, briefly contemplates calling him, then tosses that plan right the fuck out the window. Voices are bullshit. Text is their mutual mother tongue, and she'd bet at least half a baby universe Dirk isn't up for vocalizing right now.

  
\-- tipsyGnostalgic [TG] began pestering timaeusTestified [TT] \--

TG: the thing nobody ever tells you about other people is how fuckin NOISY they are  
TG: amiright?  
TG: i never thought id say this, but i miss our post-apocalyptic disaster zone  
TG: not like, the looming threat of the batterwitch n shit, but the quiet  
TG: i miss the quiet a lot  
TG: and maybe even some of the survivalist stuff, at least in small doses  
TG: rose and the crockerberts gave me the weirdest look when i said we should make seagull pie for our next movie night extravaganza  
TG: there is GOOD EATING on seagulls  
TG: and they make a nice change from fish you know?  
TG: i thought id finally gotten away from descaling fish when we ditched sea hitlers water hellscape, but nope  
TG: here we are back to fish for every meal that doesnt come straight from our alchemiters and dwindling stocks of grist  
TG: (its ok you dont have to talk back if you dont want to)  
TG: (i just wanted to bitch to someone who gets it)   
TT: It's cool.  
TT: I know exactly what you mean about the quiet.  
TT: If you're game to endure the ultra minimum of human contact, i.e., breathing within the same cubic meter of air, I'm on the roof by the south chimney.  
TT: If not, I can see the dock and it's currently unoccupied.  
TT: Assuming this is a day when the incessant susurrus of waves will invoke positive memories rather than negative ones, that could make a decent temporary retreat.   
TG: awww, ur a sweetie, sitting watch over our friends like a depressed gargoyle  
TG: on due consideration im ok with breathing your gross pre-breathed air  
TG: maybe if we get really daring we can work up to touching pinky fingers!  
TG: le gasp   
TT: Scandalous. What _will_ the neighbors say?  
TT: But I'm down for perversion if you are, Ms. Lalonde.   
TG: k hang onto your panties, im coming up

\-- tipsyGnostalgic [TG] ceased pestering timaeusTestified [TT] \--  


\---------------

Roxy scrambles over the edge of the roof (she could just fly, of course, but where's the fun in that?) to find Dirk not just near the south chimney but actually curled up in the angle where it meets the solar tiles, using the heat radiating from the bricks to counter the early autumn chill. He has his shades off in deference to the darkness, but his eyes are closed instead of aimed up toward the frankly gorgeous light of the pink and white moons, both approaching full tonight.

Roxy flops back against the dark tiles of the roof, arms folded behind her head, and watches the moons flirt with thin veils of cloud. Her friends' voices drift out of the open windows downstairs, but distance and the ambient sounds of wind and wave blur them into a companionable sort of white noise. The consorts' various weekend parties are louder, but further away; noticeable only when a line or two of song finds a favorable breeze or a new branch tossed on a bonfire sends a gust of sparks above the trees and roofs of the slowly growing town.

The carapacians' celebrations, of course, make no sound.

She and Dirk breathe in companionable silence for nearly an hour, while the white moon travels fifteen degrees toward zenith and the pink moon nearly twenty degrees in the same direction, edging toward partial eclipse. Roxy's still kind of giddy over the orbital mechanics of a three-body system, and the difference two moons make in the rhythm of the tides. It could take years to carve the changes into her bones.

She _has_ years to spend on things like that. She spent her whole childhood isolated and trapped under an incessant, shadowy weight. Now it's gone. She's free. She's not alone anymore.

It would be nice if she were better at coping with that.

Beside her, Dirk sighs, pulls his legs up to his chest, and rests his face between his knees. Something's gone cockeyed in his head again, and if nobody interrupts him he'll just debate himself into knots and grandiose 'for your own good' bullshit stunts.

And hey, an hour of silence isn't anywhere near enough to get Roxy ready to face a crowd, but she's refueled enough on moonlight to talk to her oldest friend.

"The dumbest thing," she says, jumping straight in because what's the sense in wasting mouth noises on irrelevancies, "is that weekend movie nights aren't even _party_ -parties, nothing loud or crazy intense. It's just all our best friends hanging out on comfy sofas playing goofy sleepover games, but stupid me got so wound up I had to run screaming into the night. Otherwise I would've lost my shit at them over fish tacos and a popcorn fight, and that's just wrong with a capital R."

"Capital W," Dirk mutters, uncurling slightly and tilting his head until a bare sliver of orange iris is visible over the edge of his right knee.

"Pedant," Roxy says, rather than draw attention to his lack of shades. "I just keep thinking, it shouldn't bug me so much. You've got a perfect excuse to flip out at extended social interactions, mister raised-by-robots. I actually had real live neighbors. I should be over this by now."

Dirk shrugs, which looks incredibly doofy when he's all curled up like a pill bug. "As people keep telling me, brains aren't particularly logical organs. Besides, there's a pretty big difference between sign language and a dozen plus people with actual vocal cords, some of whom have a tragically shaky grasp of volume control."

"Ha. Yeah. Still."

"Still," Dirk agrees.

Roxy spreads her arms wide, staring up at the moons and the as-yet-unnamed constellations of their new universe, galaxy, solar system. Their new sun's a little brighter than Sol used to be -- a little smaller in the sky, a little more pure-white than yellow-white -- and more like Alternia's sun in its position vis-à-vis galactic center, which makes for amazingly dense and brilliant starscapes. And she's saying this as a person who grew up with no artificial light to blank out old Earth's night skies.

"Humans made the trolls' signs into constellations without any outside influence, just the shape of the universe or something," she muses. "I wonder if it's cheating to design our constellations ourselves."

Dirk shrugs again, a faint movement of shadow against darker shadow in the corner of her vision. "All our sessions were fucked from the start; we had to cheat just to get out alive. What's a little more cheating compared to that? Ethical qualms aside, I'm pretty sure this planet isn't going to be the focus of any future Sburb sessions. That dubious honor goes to the billions of native planets kicking around this universe. If anyone's getting gently manipulated into using three-eyed cats and purple horrorterrors as part of their star myths, it's all those statistically inevitable aliens out there in the wild black yonder."

"I bet their myths kick ass," Roxy says.

"I believe that's more or less implicit in the definition of the word. I'm not sure what they'll make of a hat or an LP record, though," Dirk says.

This time it's Roxy's turn to shrug. "Old-school D&D monsters, maybe? Or no, ten gets you one they'll go with crows and seagulls instead." She pauses, reconsiders. "Then again, Terezi's symbol is basically a giant lab tool with a shit-ton of cultural baggage, and Karkat's is kind of like, handcuffs, right? Maybe hats wind up as a symbol of intellect and general badassery -- oh! or artificial life, like Frosty the Snowman's magic hat, 'cause of your robots and puppets thing -- and records symbolize creativity and art and stuff."

"Hats as a symbol of hubris and overreach, more likely," Dirk mutters.

Roxy wriggles sideways until she's just close enough to flick the fingertips of her left hand against the side of his shoe. "Knock it off, dumbass. Nobody gets to badmouth my best friend -- not even my best friend."

Dirk unburies his face and meets Roxy's eyes straight on, one eyebrow raised. "I was under the impression that that title belonged to either Jane or Calliope. When did I inherit the position, and why was I not previously informed of this change in status? Are you sure you're following friend protocol correctly?"

Roxy flicks his shoe again. "Friendship is a big category! You're all, like, different instantiations of the concept of 'best friend' -- Callie's my squee and kissing partner, Janey's my partner in crime, Rosie's my sister, Jake's my goofing off friend, Dave's my surrealism feedback dude, John's my maybe-kinda-sorta other kissing partner, and so on and so forth. _You_ , Dirk Strider, are the person who knows me best in two and a half entire fucking universes. Okay? You're the one who knows what it's like. If I ever run off to be a hermit on a mountaintop, I want you to come be a hermit on the mountain next door. We can send heliograph messages back and forth, or learn how to yodel and shit, and once a month we'll get together and have a wild and crazy hermit party, just the two of us. That's the kind of best friend you are for me."

Dirk is silent for a long moment. Then he unwraps his right hand from his legs and lets it drop downward until his fingertips are just brushing the soft, ticklish (completely un-carapacian) skin of Roxy's left wrist, right over the veins carrying blood homeward to her heart.

"All that, back at you," he says.

Roxy blinks back a sudden rush of tears, and laces their fingers together. Dirk lets her.

"Jade has some electric grid plans for you to look over," she says after a minute. "You can do that anywhere, right?"

"Yeah," Dirk says.

"Then come seagull hunting with me tomorrow. Just the two of us, out on the water. Like old times. I have a harpoon gun I've been wanting to try out, and we can tell anyone who complains that we're taking soundings and stuff for potential tidal generators. Hell, we can even actually do that. But I miss you. I keep getting tangled up in everyone else and losing sight of us."

Dirk squeezes her fingers. From him, it's as good as a hug.

"Yeah," he says. "It's a plan."

Roxy looks up at the night sky rather than try to put her emotions into words. There's a patch that looks a bit like a cat with wings and a hat, if she squints and takes some heavy artistic license. She holds up her phone in her right hand and adjusts the camera settings until she can snap a useful picture. She'll photoshop the constellation in later tonight and show it to Dirk tomorrow: their friendship, immortalized in stars.

"Cool," she says.

They watch the pink moon overtake the white one in silence, fingers still entwined, the same air pumping in and out of their lungs.


End file.
